Fitness February: Post Mortem

Remember way back at the beginning of February, when the Jedi Council announced that we were going to be selfish and make sure we put fitness first in February?

Well, some of us (coughSamcough) were far more successful at this than others. However, having that idea of it being ‘Fitness February’ definitely did help us be more active than we would probably normally be during the second month of the year. (Although, being on the currently gorgeous, and non-snow inundated, West Coast was probably also a contributing factor.) However, as it often does, life reared its (sometimes) ugly head this month and got in the way (for some of us, and by some I mean mostly me). Maybe if we were further along, and more entrenched in our goals it would’ve been easier to keep the ‘fitness first’ going. But, unfortunately (for me, at least) it was the first thing to fall by the wayside.

And on that not-so-inspiring note, here are this month’s updates!

Sam:

February has been fitness month, and I sure took Andrea’s challenge to heart. I’ve only missed one scheduled day of exercise (which I plan on making up this weekend) and have even done extra days of exercise. I’m just about half-way through the Zombie Run 5K training app. Three times a week I complete the challenges in the app as I am slowing learning to run. In addition to this, I have also been going for another run or bike ride at least once a week and have attended a couple of spin classes. So for February Fit month, I have gone from practically no exercise to exercising 4-5 times per week. I’m exhausted. Like, utterly and completely exhausted. To top off the new exercise regime, I am still curling one day a week and have school another day a week. I can’t stay up a late as I used to and I’m so far behind on all of the TV shows that I watch I may never catch up. Reading, well I’ve still managed to keep that up a bit, by sheer force of will. Being in bed and asleep by 10pm is now a common occurrence. Coffee is my friend. It has been a recovery week on the Zombie run app, and for that I’m grateful. All of my muscle aches are starting to go away, which is nice since I’ve been sore since the beginning of the month. I wonder what next week has in store for me?

Kate:

This time it's my turn to make the update late! Sorry, Jedi - That damn life thing happened again.

February has been an interesting month for me, and overall I'm surprisingly pleased with how it's gone. I say surprising because I didn't actually accomplish any of my goals. I didn't go to the gym enough to make the pass worth it (though I went far more often than I would have without that incentive), and I got lazy about my stretching and really only did it 2-3 times per week. Still....that's 2-3 times per week more than I was doing in January.

I also only made an average of 9000 steps per day on my pedometer, but again....better than I had been doing.

So, no...I didn't make any of my goals, and yet just the act of having those goals in the first place got me out and being active, and doing more than I otherwise would have. The scale is finally starting to reflect that, and overall I'm ok with February. Now it's onwards to March, and to keeping these same goals. Let's see how I do with some practice under my belt!

Andrea:

Oh February! How you slipped through my fingers. Things were going well, I was super on track. Then vertigo made an unpleasant visit, I made it through that only to have my landlord’s sell my house and let me know that the new owners wanted vacant occupancy, which means a hunt for a new place was in order. I hate making excuses, but life really made it hard this month. I’ll be honest, I didn’t eat terribly well, and my planned workouts suffered.

 However, that’s enough of the ‘oh woe is me’! My vertigo is gone, and I moved into my new place this weekend (also contributing to the lateness of this post), which means it’s time to RESPAWN! For the last two weeks the video game called life kept battering at me until I finally ‘died’. And what do you do when you die in a video game? You respawn and try again with the lessons you learned during your downfall!

It’s time to rehash my goals, learn from my mistakes and take on March like a MOFO! I’M COMING FOR YOU MAAAAARCH!!!!

If Master Chief can respawn, then so can I!

February Mini-Update!

Here's a little update on how the beginning of our February of Fitness is going! 

Kate: 

This week has been a great example of real life intruding on your plans (those oh so idealistic things) and saying "oh you think so, do you?" I've recently started on a medication known for causing side effects of sleepiness (wanna go for a walk? no?), and major GI upset (Pro: eating less. Con: still don't want to go for a walk), and then I decided to spend 7 of the first 14 days of this month out of town.

Still, I can't help but feel that these are the kinds of things that goals are made for. It's easy to follow your plans when everything is going smoothly, but it takes dedication to do it when it's not easy! Am I dedicated? Well....somewhat. I've done my 10 minutes of stretching every day, and I'm already noticing that it's starting to feel a little easier. I've not been averaging 12000 steps, but I'm sitting at 9000, which isn't so bad. I haven't made it to the gym yet, but I have put all my scheduled gym days in my calendar so I know when I am going to go.

All in all, I'd say I'm telling real life to suck it.

Sam:

There is something fundamentally wrong about being awake for three hours before you even start work.  Especially when you start work at 8:00am.  This is now my life?  What did I sign up for?  I am glad that I only have to get up at 4:30am twice a week.  Thankfully my third mandatory run of the week can be a bit later in the morning, and any other exercise I might do on my non-running days will not be at 5am.  Things I have noticed on my 5am runs:  It’s dark.  Like really dark.  Like so dark I feel like I must have been captured by the Vashta Nerada (hey, who turned out the lights?)  It’s also cold and foggy and wet and quiet.  No one else is running at this time.  The cars on the road are very limited and I might only see one or two other people walking their dogs, but that’s about it for human life.  This can be somewhat disconcerting as the zombie noises coming from my Zombie Run app can make the imagination run a little bit wild.

 Andrea:

It’s official, I’m in love with spaghetti squash. I cooked it for myself last night for the first time, and it’s amazing.

Apart from fun new recipes, I’m also cleaning up in the steps department. My UP band is trying really hard to convince me I should up my goal to 13,000 since I regularly hit that, I haven’t yet, but we’ll see. It also means that I’m almost in Rivendell. I’m doing the Eowyn Walk to Mordor challenge. That’s right, someone mapped out how many KMs it took Frodo and company to walk to Mordor and back and made a challenge out of it. Let me tell you, those hobbits walked WAY more than me. I should finally hit this first milestone of Rivendell on the weekend, and then on to Lothlorien! 

I’m also doing the Zombies 5k training, although I’m not up at 4:30 for my runs, usually 6-6:30, a much more reasonable time, not nearly as dark, although I do get to run through a graveyard…

Yup, I’m totally keeping February Fit!